Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris – who claims she never wanted to be in politics – has snagged a starring role in the nation’s biggest partisan soap opera.

Her decision to require all counties to submit their presidential election results today slammed the brakes on a protracted recount and led Al Gore’s camp to accuse her of taking sides.

But at least one observer says the 43-year-old Republican – who campaigned for George W. Bush this fall – was just doing her job.

“I don’t believe she would gamble on that. I think she’ll want to keep her hands clean and strictly follow the law,” said Jackie Malone, chairwoman of the nonpartisan Florida Common Cause.

“From her administration, from what I’ve observed of her professionally, I wouldn’t call her character into question.”

Even before the ballot bungle, Harris’ office had come under fire – for a public service announcement that featured retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf urging Floridians to vote.

The problem? Schwarzkopf is one of Bush’s most prominent supporters and the campaign also used him in a get-out-the-vote telephone campaign.

Florida Common Cause executive director Ben Wilcox said Schwarzkopf was a poor choice, but he doesn’t think Harris was trying to influence the outcome of the election with the TV spot.

Harris may be a Republican, but she comes from Democratic stock. Her grandfather, citrus magnate Ben Hill Griffin Jr., was a state legislator in the ’50s and ’60s, and her father, George, was also active in local Democratic politics.

As a young woman, Harris worked as an intern for Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles and Republican Rep. Andy Ireland, and launched a campaign to get conservative Democrats to register as Republicans.

She studied art in Spain and philosophy in Switzerland, and made millions in commercial real estate.

Harris – who is on her second marriage, to a marine-products salesman with a teenage daughter – says she never envisioned a political career.

“I had grown up around politics all my life and didn’t like politics,” she told the Naples News two years ago. “I was determined not to be in politics.”

That changed in 1994, when she was elected a state senator. She ran for secretary of state in 1998, defeating the scandal-tarred incumbent in the Republican primary.

She then beat her Democratic opponent after a nasty race that included accusations she accepted illegal contributions during her ’94 campaign.